COLUMN: Trump’s inner New Yorker will be his undoing
Opinion Editor Dominick Mastrangelo
I’m originally from the Empire State.
Every time I went into the city to watch a Yankees game or see a show, I had the displeasure of seeing people like Donald Trump.
Consider what this type of person is like before voting for “The Donald.”
These folks always wore Armani suits and talked loudly on their top-of-the-line iPhones. They usually weren’t walking city streets with us “heathens” for very long.
Those Wall Street clowns would slip into a spacious limousine and speed off to a high-rise on the Upper East Side.
What they usually left behind was a mentally handicapped person or a homeless veteran hunched over at the crosswalk.
I watched as New York’s wealthiest refused to throw a nickel to homeless vets as they traveled home to enjoy a cigar, likely lit by a $100 bill.
That was what drove me away from the city. New York is home to some of the richest and poorest people on the planet.
Sadly, these two groups are virtually living on top of each other. It is a microcosm of one of America’s biggest problems.
Now, the poster child for New York’s wealth, assertiveness and superiority complex is running for president.
We all know “The Donald.”
Television shows, front row seats at Yankee Stadium and the hair.
Oh God, the hair.
Trump has something every successful and famous American needs: A name brand. That is what has gotten him this far.
Now that he is making a serious case for the presidency, Trump’s inner New Yorker is beginning to surface.
Trump is a racist xenophobic demagogue. Not all New Yorkers are. In fact, most New Yorkers are pretty compassionate people.
But Trump is America’s loudest bigot.
He says outlandish things and his poll numbers skyrocket.
It has become like clockwork.
His supporters are the most fascinating aspect of his campaign. Trump has found a way to relate to the uneducated farmer in Iowa as well as the wealthy banker in New Hampshire.
He takes shots at everyone, and does so with a crude, dismissive tone. He’s made references to Megyn Kelly’s bodily functions and referred to Hillary Clinton as a dog.
I don’t support Trump. No right-minded individual would.
But I get Donald. I really do.
He’s a New Yorker.
Sometimes we say things we don’t mean to get a rise out of people. Oftentimes, we catch flak for it.
Trump, like all of us, has a first amendment right to say basically whatever he pleases about whomever he pleases.
But he can’t do that and run for president at the same time.
That’s the other self-detonating quality most New Yorkers have. We’re horribly stubborn.
And Trump won’t be toned down or censored for the sake of political correctness. It’s only going to get worse from here.
I don’t know who our next president will be. But I know it won’t be Trump.
His campaign won’t survive a general election when voters consider some of the comments he’s made.
If he would have filtered his opinions on certain topics, Trump might be giving the Democrats something to worry about in November.
But thankfully that’s not going to happen. The city dweller in Trump won’t allow it to.
Unlike most politicians, Trump’s true colors show every time he steps to the microphone. He can’t help himself.
He’s just too New York for his own good.
More importantly, he’s too New York to be the leader of the free world.
